I have seen this video featuring Louis C.K. on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” around for the last two weeks on the web and Facebook and such. It’s so incredibly true that I finally tracked down an embeddable version to post here.
It is amazing how incredibly spoiled people are today, especially young people. Many have a misguided sense of entitlement that boggles my mind… it’s like they are owed whatever it is they want, and don’t think they should be required to earn it or earn money to pay for it. The internet is a prime example. Many people seem to think they are entitled to free content on the internet. They actually get angry if they have to pay for something or have to wait for something. Some time ago I posted a short video on YouTube demonstrating my digital color technique. It was not especially well done, but YouTube was an easy place to host it and share it here on the blog as a part of my color tutorial. I have received several polite inquiries about my doing more videos, and these are quite welcome. I have also received not a few snarky or smart-assed comments or e-mails scolding me for not doing any more and actually demanding me to update my video “channel”. It’s like they are feeling cheated that I am not spending my free time educating or entertaining them for free. Hard to believe, but true.
That said, much of what Louis is saying is just a result of progress. After all, there was a time that there were no telephones at all and instant communication over long distances was impossible… yet I’ll bet he would not hesitate to call his phone company and complain when his service is not working rather than to sit and stare into space just being thankful there is such a thing as a telephone even if it doesn’t work right at the time. I know I get pissed whenever my internet is down, miracle though it is… I am paying for it, after all. It’s all a matter of persepective, I guess… and what you’ve become accustomed to.
Frequent reader of The Mad Blog and fellow Minnesotan Marv Sohlo emailed me a link to this video which features a short but informative piece on caricatures and why they resonate so much with people. It’s from the BCC show “The Human Face” narrated by John Cleese. Unfortunately the creators do not allow embedding, but click on the screen capture to go to the YouTube clip:
Click on the image for the full clip… it’s less than 2 minutes…. we’ll wait…
I’ve always said that a really good caricature looks more like the subject than a photo does, and some of the observations this video makes about how the brain processes the human face offers some explanation as to why that might be very true. While that is interesting, it’s the short interview with Spitting Image caricaturist Tim Watts and his great caricature sculpture of narrator Cleese that really makes this video good. Watt’s observations on what needed to be exaggerated on Cleese are spot on. Most enlightening is his observation that in order to exaggerate the chin and forehead “something had to give” and that meant reducing the size of Cleese’s nose and making it more delicate. That’s a great example of the theory of constant mass in action.
I’m usually not one to post random YouTube videos no matter how clever, but every once and awhile you find the perfect blend of image, humor and ingenuity and it cannot be resisted.
Between the funny design of the character, the fact that this is the actual song and not some redub AND the further fact that someone realized what they were hearing and made the connection, this might be the funniest 20 second video I’ve ever seen.
Last night I finished a last minute job for MAD that was probably the toughest deadline they’ve ever given me. Surprisingly I finished two days ahead of schedule. As a result I am frazzled and need a break, so today’s post is just going to be a disturbing Youtube video I ran across on the excellent DRAWN! illustration and cartooning blog. This was an actual commercial for Green Giant canned peas and corn using stop motion animation:
That is incredibly frightening. The giant is a leering, psychotic horror… especially terrifying is this final pose where he leans down and thrusts the cans at the viewer with an insane look worthy of Brian Bolland‘s Joker illustrations. If I had been a kid in the 1950′s and saw that commercial I would have had nightmares for a week and never eaten a bite of Green Giant vegetables!
Very few of the posts at Drawn! are this terrifying. If you don’t visit that blog regularly you are missing out.
I’m busy working on a few jobs right now, but here are some tidbits from the last week of interest around the interwebby:
Who Blotches the Watchmen Dept.
Fox, that’s who.
On Christmas Eve Judge Gary Allen Feess issued a ruling in favor of Fox in the rights dispute case over the new Watchmen movie that is supposed to premiere on March 3rd. Fox alleged that they owned the rights to produce and distribute a Watchmen movie, and that producer Larry Gordon was breaking a contract between himself and Fox guaranteeing those rights by producing the Zack Synder film and distributing it through Warner Bros. Fanboys the world over are scribbling in their secret journals and preparing to don trench coats, lift-shoes and ink blot masks seeking retribution (that’s a Watchmen reference, for you non-geeks).
According to this article on EW.com, Feess doesn’t seem to think much of Gordon’s honesty. Fox was apparently able to prove they did contact Warner Bros. prior to the film’s production in an effort to settle the matter, but were ignored. Gordon claimed he was “unable to remember” his agreement with Fox.
As bad as this might seem for fans of the graphic novel like myself who have been waiting for decades for a movie to be made, the article linked above is right when it points out this is actually a good thing overall. It means that the courts still protect the copyrights of studios and honor agreements properly. It benefits no one when these things are trampled underfoot. Do not fear, Watchmen rubes… the movie will come out. There is too much money to be made for WB not to settle with Fox and get Dr. Manhattan, Rorschach and co. on the silver screen this winter.
A Gang of Idiots Grows in Brooklyn
Actually they were from the Bronx, but who’s counting? Check out this awesome picture from the New York Times Magazine article “The Lives They Lived”:
Picture from the VandenBergh/Elder Family
That’s Al Jaffee and Will Elder having lunch in the cafeteria of their high school in 1939. The picture was part of an article remembering the lives of some notable folks who passed on in 2008 (Will’s gone but Al is still kickin’!). Did the other kids in that cafeteria have any idea that sitting among them were two of the most brilliant and innovative creative geniuses the world of cartooning and visual humor would ever see? No, they thought they were weirdos… that’s why they are all by themselves. If I had a time machine one of my stops would definitely be that cafeteria to have lunch with those guys. If you want to blow your mind even further, it is very likely the guy taking that picture was Harvey Kurtzman, another high school pal. That’s THREE of the most brilliant and innovative creative geniuses the world of cartooning and visual humor would ever see, in case you are counting.
The Apple Falls Far from the Tree Dept.
Last week Apple announced that next month’s Macworld Conference & Expo, happening Jan. 5th -9th in San Fransisco, CA, will be the last one they participate in and that CEO Steve Jobs will not be doing a keynote address there. The annual San Fransisco event has been considered THE major Mac tradeshow and has been going on since 1985. Apple cites “reduced need to appear at trade shows” as the reason for the decision. Apple Insider reports that “sources within Apple claim the move is strictly a matter of de-emphasizing the event and not the sign of any health problems that would keep Jobs from presenting a keynote.”
Personally I think that stinks of spin and a very bad business decision.
First off, the spin: regardless of their decision to not appear in future shows, there are only two reasons Steve Jobs won’t be delivering a keynote address THIS year:
He can’t
He won’t.
I don’t buy the latter. Why won’t he? He doesn’t have a few hours one afternoon to pimp his company’s newest products at a major trade show? It’s not the travel… he LIVES in San Fransisco! It’s not the preparation… he’s got thousands of employees who could prepare the entire address for him (somehow I don’t think Steve does his own multimedia presentation work). Nope, it’s because he can’t. His health has been a question mark for some time. I think it’s obvious it’s worse than Apple wants to admit and he couldn’t do the address without revealing that. Really that is neither here nor there anyway. Someday Apple will have to do business without Steve Jobs as their figurehead… they might as well get started. Let the man scale back and retire if he’s having health issues.
Second, the bad business decision. Maybe they feel they no longer need to do trade shows, with the proliferation of their Apple Stores and online presence, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. What has set Apple apart from Microsoft and hardware companies like Dell, etc. is their clinging to the image of the small market, personal chic brand. Even as they keep getting bigger and bigger market share, and as they dominate some markets like personal music players and smartphones, they have still insisted they are the laid back and cooler little brother who has the personal touch. Their entire ad campaigns are built around this notion. Removing themselves from personal interaction like trade shows will reinforce the growing perception that they are becoming another soulless corporate monstrosity. Considering the prices they expect people to pay for their products in order to keep their glossy white Apple Stores afloat, they shouldn’t have any qualms about spending a few bucks to keep the little personal interaction they still have with the masses and taking advantage of the publicity and buzz that surround the announcements they make at these large shows. Hundreds of live bloggers and maybe hundreds of thousands of consumers watching live? You can’t buy that kind of publicity.
If Apple keeps going down this path, they will become like Willy Wonka and his chocolate factory, with wonderful toys rolling out of the factory but out of touch with the consumer, or at least the consumer feeling out of touch with them. You have to wonder just how long the toys will stay wonderful if that happens.
After what only seems like a forever filled with the usual partisan ugliness associated with a U.S. presidential election, today has finally arrived and by tomorrow morning we will know who will lead the United States for the next four years…
…or will we?
The photo above is of the famous gaffe in the November 3rd, 1948 issue of the Chicago Tribune, where they jumped the gun and declared Thomas E. Dewey the winner of the election over Harry S. Truman. It’s always been a dilemma for printed periodicals to decide at what point they should “call” an election and therefore get the story to press as soon as possible.
Over on his excellent blog “News From ME“, Mark Evanier writes that last week cartoonist Garry Trudeau had already drawn his “Doonesbury” strips for this week and turned them in presuming a Barack Obama victory. Mark rightly points out that doing so is a win-win either way. If Trudeau’s right, well, he’s right. If he’s wrong and John McCain wins, well, it’s a pop culture faux pas that is both funny and notable (probably followed by a “dream” explanation and a rude awaking). Mark also recalls the famous MAD issue #60 from 1961 that went to press just days before the election where they printed one cover showing John F. Kennedy as the winner and one with Richard M. Nixon, and then printed the issue with two “front covers” one upside down on the “back” and half the issue printed upside down after it, therefore rendering the issue both “right” and “wrong” in equal measure:
I have another MAD election story to tell that is even more bizarre.
In October of 2000 MAD was putting together it’s annual “MAD 20 People, Events and Things” issue and I was assigned the obligatory page making fun of the presidential election of that year, George W. Bush versus Al Gore. The issue was going to press on Nov. 8th, the day after the election. Not knowing who was going to win, I was asked to do two versions of the image, one with Bush being sworn in and one with Gore, showing the appropriate despondent other candidate and new first lady as well. Here were the images I did:
Since the print date was so close, they editors actually turned in both pages to the printer and were going to literally call them up on the 8th and tell them which to run. I remember The Lovely Anna and I were vacationing in Hawaii at the time of the election (you have to love absentee voting), and on the 8th I got up and checked the internet to see which of my illustrations would run in MAD.
… of course there was no winner. Not the next day, or the next, or the next. Thanks to “hanging chads”, general partisan stupidity and the controversy surrounding Florida’s electoral votes, the actual “winner” wasn’t known for weeks.
MAD waited for a few days to see if a result would be forthcoming, delaying the printing of those pages and the final stapling of the magazine as a result. Finally they went to press having printed half the issues with Bush and half with Gore as the winner. The piece was moved from “Dumbest Thing” #11 to #1 (actually this was decided well beforehand), and featured the following disclaimer:
Editor’s Note: For the purpose of historical inaccuracy, some editions of this issue depict George W. Bush being sworn in, while others show Al Gore. In the interest of bipartisanship, we urge all Americans to buy them both!
I believe I have relayed this story before here on The MAD Blog but I thought it worth revisiting on yet another Election Day.
I promised to let everybody know where they can order one of the sculpted Sherlock Holmes pens that were created based on an illustration of Holmes that I did for voice artist extraordinaire David Ian Davies as “cover art” for his complete collection of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Holmes “Canon” audiobooks. Well the pen is finally available and you can order it at David’s website directly from this page. Unfortunately for some odd reason the page does not open correctly when using a Mac, either with Safari or Firefox (at least not for me), so you’ll need to use a Windows PC browser if you want to get one of these pens. They sell for $12.95 plus shipping and come gift boxed.
While you are at it, if you have any interest in Conan Doyle’s Holmes stories, you cannot do better than David’s audiobooks. He does all the voices and it sounds like a full company of actors, each with a distinctive personality and voice. Amazing. His Dr. Watson is particularly fantastic. Check them out on Audible.com.
Usual Panel of Idiots Dept.
Thanks to the mysterious DD of MadMublings.com for these great links to videos of the San Diego Comic Con’s MAD pnael discussion, moderated by Mark Evanier and featuring Al Jaffee, Sergio Aragonés, Al Feldstein and Arnie Kogen.
Our usual smörgãsbord of cartoon, caricature and MAD related website, links, news articles and announcements… or whatever else strikes us as worthy or ridicule.
Little Orphan Party Dept.-
For those in the Atlanta area there will be an event to oppose the dreaded “Orphan Works Act” tonight at the Lynne Farris Gallery in Atlanta, GA starting at 7:30 pm. See details in quoted area below.
IN OTHER NEWS- Orphan Works advocates are supposedly planning their own party to promote the act. If you should attend this “Orphan Works Promotional Party”, be aware that you should at no time leave your drink or open beer on any table unwatched, as if anyone comes by and is unable to discover who’s beer or drink it is after a “reasonably diligent search”, they are free to take and consume it themselves.
On the plus side, if you don’t mind a little possible backwash contamination, you can likely get hammered for free at that event, date TBD.
FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP
In Atlanta this weekend!:
An Orphan Works Opposition Party
Saturday, July 12, 7:30 PM
Lynne Farris Gallery
50 Hurt Plaza Southeast
Atlanta, GA 30303
404 202-5654
Admission Free/Open to the Public
The event is open to the general public as well as visual artists, musicians, writers and independent filmmakers. Learn about the danger to copyright posed by the pending Orphan Works bill. Ask questions about the legislation and how it will affect you. Find out what you can do to help. Decorate a postcard and send it to your elected officials to let them know that you oppose this bill. Blank pre-stamped postcards will be available at the party, along with the addresses of your elected officials. A $1 or $2 donation at the door will be appreciated to help defray postage.
This party is being organized by art licensing community members Joanne Fink, Brenda Pinnick and Kathy Fincher, and hosted by Lynne Farris of the Lynne Farris Gallery. Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner of the Illustrator’s Partnership will participate via speaker-phone. For more information about the orphan works legislation and opposition effort, please visit our website: www.owoh.org
Wal-Mart shopper Shawnedria McGinty picked up the comic at a Houston, Texas Wal-Mart and complained to Wal-Mart that the cartoon characters depicted within where racially insensitive and insulting.
“I was like, OK, is that a monkey or a boy?” McGinty said. “To me it was an insult.”
McGinty and local Houston community activists called for the removal of the comic from Wal-Mart shelves, which, of course, Wal-Mart promptly did. A store spokesperson said they had received no other complaints about Memin… but discontinued carrying the book anyway.
Never mind that, according to Hispanic customers and spokespeople, the character is loved and respected, and the stories contain messages of “honesty, justice and tolerance”. Goodness knows we don’t want impressionable young people reading that kind of drivel.
In all fairness, the character does go over the top in caricaturing black racial stereotyped features.
The speakers include main guest speaker Ismael Roldan, and NYC based caricature illustrator who’s work has been seen in the likes of Time, Money, Sports Illustrated, The Wall Street Journal and Forbes, among others.
Other speakers will conduct seminars and workshops throughout the week, and include the following:
Jan Op de Beeck- “Draw Along with Jan”
Stephen Silver- “Drawing from “LIFE”"
Tom Richmond (hey… that’s me!)- “Caricatures in Humorous Illustration”
Court Jones- “Digital Painting Workshop”
Jason Seiler- “Caricature 101″
Joe Bluhm- “Advanced Caricature for the Live Artist”
Meaghan Kent- “Legal Matters for the Artist”
That’s quite an all-star lineup, with no less than four previous “Caricaturist of the Year” winners doing seminar/workshops.
The event will be held at the Brownstone Hotel in Raleigh. You have to be an NCN member or associate member or a guest of a member to attend. See the NCN website for more details.
My seminar will discuss how caricature is used in today’s illustration market, how to market yourself and your work and other considerations of freelane illustration as it pertains to caricatures… which will take about 10 minutes so if you come please have a lot of questions ready!
Our usual smörgåsbord of cartoon, caricature and MAD related website, links, news articles and announcements!
I Like Both Kinds of Music: Country AND Western Dept.-
MAD artist Grey Blackwell and MAD scribe David Shayne collaborated with David’s brother Jon on this animated music video where “Merle Hazard” laments losing his girl for someone who is more “environmentally sensitive” and trys going green to lure her back.
I’m Smarter than This 5th Grader Dept.-
Smithson with the offensive drawing…
10 year old 5th grader Cullen Smithson got into a little hot water recently when his teacher, Karen Boudreau, 44, filed criminal charges against him over a drawing he did of her at school. That instantly caused a number of flashbacks for me concerning drawings I did of my teachers in school… but I was a little smarter than this kid. I didn’t draw them lying dead with a bullet hole in their head and me holding a smoking gun. I was more subtle.
Cullen’s drawing depicts Mulcahey Middle School teacher Boudreau and a girl named “Kailey” both with marks labeled “bullet wholes” (guess spelling isn’t Cullen’s strong suit) in them with him standing there (labeled “me”) next to a gun. There is also a large “HA HA” in the mix. Those goofy kids!
The story mentions a suspension but no details about it. It’s centered over the criminal charges the teacher filed and the boy’s mother’s outrage over it. Of course she immediately ran to the American Civil Liberties Union to enlist them to fight the charges. She is quoted in the story as saying: “he shouldn’t be treated like a criminal. He did not threaten. He was making a picture for himself. He wasn’t showing anyone. He didn’t go up to the teacher and give it to her. There were no threats.” I wonder if this lady reads the papers, or has ever heard of Columbine, Red Lake, Pine Middle School or about a dozen other incidents in the last 10 years where some kid takes a gun to school and starts shooting? I’d agree filing criminal charges is a bit over the top, but for all we know she demanded the kid get serious psychological counseling and his mom refused to do it, and the only recourse was getting the courts involved.
I’ll tell you what, I got sick of being dragged into the principal’s office everytime a drawing of a teacher surfaced around school. I endlessly expained to the principal that I only did the really funny ones, and I was insulted to be accused of the crappy ones.
MAD on the Move Dept.-
Someone on YouTube uploaded the first five plus minutes of the 1974 MAD television special which includes the opening sequence and the first segment “the automobile manufacturer of the year”. It looks to me like Angelo Torres did the art that was the basis for the “automobile” skit, but the animators obviously had to adjust things for the animation to work. Actually the animation itself is a lot more involved than you might think it would be.
The website has a nice slideshow of 17 covers from the last 60 years of MAD. The article itself is said to contain interviews with many classic MAD artists. I haven’t seen it yet but am on the lookout for a copy.
McNutty Cartoons Dept.
Over on my friend Cedric Hohnstadt‘s excellent blog I discovered that our mutual friends Michael Jantze (cartoonist of “The Norm” strip) and Kelly McNutt (Minnesotan cartoonist and animator) have posted some of their animated collaborations on YouTube:
There’s also a link on their YouTube page to an animation short they produced for Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman‘s “Zits“:
Three very different styles of animation and design, all very well done. Hopefully Michael and Kelly have more up their sleeves and we’ll see them soon. You can check out Michael’s YouTube page for updates and visit Kelly’s blog as well for upcoming news and projects.
Bad Monkey Dept.
The last issue of MAD, #489, caused a mini-fervor among hardcore MAD fans, as it was noted on several message boards that longtime MAD scribe Dick DeBartolo had no writing credit of any kind in the issue. That would mean an end to his consecutive issue streak of 386 issues (he’s had a writing credit in every issue since #103). However in a correction it is noted in issue #489 that Dick’s credit in the “Monkey-lini Pages” was omitted. From MAD 489:
Correction!
Due to gross incompetence, Dick “Stompy Ding Dong” Debartolo’s credit was omitted from the Friends of Monkey-lini listing in last month’s Monkey issue. As a result, editors T. Worthington Snoots, Goopy III and Baron von Whoopsie have all been severely reprimanded and had their tire swinging privileges revoked indefinitely.
No correction, however, for their dedication of the issue to the “late, great J. Fred Muggs” (the TV celebrity chimp who painted the cover of MAD #38 in March of 1958) despite the fact that J. Fred is retired and “still lives comfortably with guardians in his Citrus Park home of more than 30 years” at the age of 56. He may have a few years left in him. “Cheeta“, the chimpanzee actor who appeared in the early Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller and many other films, is76 years old and living in Palm Springs.
Incidentally, check out Mike Slaubaugh‘s MAD Lists website for other stats on the appearances of MAD contributors and such.
